In A Nick of Time

People keep asking me for this recipe, but until today, I never got around to writing it down. This is one of those recipes that you make so often, your hands just grab, pour, grate, and grind without really thinking about what you're doing, and of course it always comes out perfect.

This is my general purpose salad dressing. I use it on tossed salads but also zucchini salads, green bean salads, french bean salads, wax bean salads, beet salads, and pretty much any vegetable I want to serve as a salad.

This recipe started off as a basic oil and vinegar dressing, but it's current version turns heads every time and best of all, you can whip up a batch in just minutes.

Here's what you'll need:

Instructions:

I start off with an empty salad dressing bottle that I can refill. Using a kitchen funnel, I begin adding my dry ingredients seen in the photo to the salad dressing bottle. Suffice to say, if you have fresh basil, use it. Otherwise, grind up about 2 Tbsp of dried basil leaves between your thumb and fingers as you add it to the dressing bottle. (Psst...grinding dried spices as you add them helps to release the flavor.) Do the same thing with the oregano, except use about 3 Tbsp. If you're using fresh garlic, dice two cloves, otherwise add 2 tsp of minced garlic like shown in the photo. (In a pinch, you can get away with garlic power.) Add 1/2 to 3/4 cup grated cheese. I used parmesan for the photo but prefer Romano. Add your olive oil - any kind of olive oil will do. I like the bolder tasting oils. Use 2:1 of olive oil to vinegar. For my batches, if I use a cup of olive oil, then I'll use a 1/2 cup of vinegar. Adjust that to your taste, but be aware the vinegar can get a bit overpowering if you're not careful. Now add an equal amount of white balsamic vinegar. This is the vinaigrette's magic ingrediant. The white balsamic vinegar is made with white grapes giving the dressing a fruity taste. Once you convinced all your ingrediants to go through the funnel, put the cap on the dressing bottle and shake it up. No need to refrigerate Enjoy